During my visit to Gordon Deeg’s garden, I was struck by how many shohin bonsai I found. Small conifers, broadleaf evergreens and deciduous varieties filled narrow benches around the garden. Trident maple Shohin bonsai Knowing how hard it is to assemble a proper shohin display, I appreciated the sheer volume of little trees and the opportunities […]
Shohin
Decandling shohin black pine
The steps are simple. 1) Remove spring shoots. Shohin black pine – 21 years old After removing spring shoots 2) Remove extra needles. After removing extra needles 3) Perform light cutback as needed. The first branch on the right is long After shortening the first branch on the right That’s it. In all I removed 14 […]
Small bonsai and accents
After reviewing my photos of smaller trees and accents at Redwood Empire Bonsai Society’s 31st annual show, I’m reminded how easy it is to overlook smaller trees in a room full of large bonsai. These shohin and small-sized trees deserve as much attention as the large and medium sized bonsai they share tables with. Here they are […]
Shohin pines at Gashou-en
Here is but a small sample of the shohin pines at Gashou-en. Japanese black pine Black pine Black pine Sasaki clearly appreciates black pines as there was no lack of the variety at his nursery. Some had large trunks, others slender trunks with good movement, and almost all of them were under 8″. Black pine Black […]
Gashou-en
Masahiro Sasaki is doing his part to put Mifune, Kumamoto, on the map. The small Kyushu town is home to Gashou-en, a large nursery specializing in small-sized bonsai. Every other tree was worth a double-take. Here are some of their chojubai. Japanese flowering quince ‘Chojubai’ Chojubai (subtract two zeros to get an idea of the […]